Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Clare Chin, Head of Investor Relations at Axiata Group Berhad. Thank you for standing by for Axiata's third quarter 2022 results briefing. Today, we have present with us Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Joint Acting CEO and CEO Telecom Business. Vivek Sood, Joint Acting CEO and CFO, as well as representatives from our operating companies. There will be a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. Lastly, two key housekeeping reminders. You will be on mute throughout the presentation. Note that we will aim to end promptly at 4:30 P.M. today. Without further ado, I'll hand over the conference to Vivek.
Thank you, Clare. A very good afternoon, good morning, depending where you are. Let me go through the quick summary of the executive summary of the performance for Q3. Just a headline. I think we've had a fairly strong underlying operational performance during the quarter, despite the macro challenges which we are facing in some of the markets. Having said that, let me start with the reported numbers for the year to date. Revenue's been growing fairly strong at 7.6%, EBITDA at 9%. However, profit's been impacted because of the unrealized, mostly unrealized, Forex losses, coming from the loans we have in the group at corporate center, Dialog, and somewhat in Bangladesh, which is Robi. As you know, most of the currencies have actually weakened against the U.S. dollar.
Having said that, I think strong underlying performance with the revenue growth coming at 10.7%. EBITDA coming at growth of 10.8%, and the EBITDA margin remaining fairly stable at 44.6% and EBIT growth at 31.5%. If you recall, one of the KPIs we had set for 2022 onwards is our EBIT focus. The underlying performance profits are at +19.1%. All operations have done extremely well except Dialog and Ncell. Dialog for the macro situation in that market. Ncell has been some regulatory changes, specifically coming out of the interconnect rates.
Also, to some extent, profits impacted by the prosperity tax, Cukai Makmur in Malaysia, and increased finance costs coming out of the acquisition debt which we took for acquiring the Link Net business in Indonesia as well as the tower business, towers in Philippines. Adjusted OFCF. Adjusted OFCF is basically OFCF adjusted to the ROU assets, which is minus, which is around close to - 4.5% or MYR 2.2 billion. Adjusted one is - 19.5%, and largely coming out of the impact of the towers acquisition in Philippines. The tower acquisition because this is acquisition of towers and not the acquisition of company, have been classified under the OFCF as CapEx.
However, when we look at the numbers subsequently, you would see those numbers without the tower acquisition numbers. Gross debt to EBITDA has been higher at 3.2x, mainly coming out of the acquisition debt, as well as the fact that most of these acquisitions, EBITDA still not been consolidated fully. We expect this to be tapered down on account of the proceeds which we are expected to get from the merger in Malaysia, and also the fact that we will start consolidating the full EBITDA of the acquired companies going forward. Healthy cash balance of MYR 7.7 billion. Pro forma gross debt to EBITDA, excluding the M&A, is around 2.74x.
I'll now hand over to Hans to talk about the mobile and telco businesses, their performance.
Thank you very much, Vivek, and good afternoon, good morning, everyone. I won't go into too much detail at this executive summary level. We'll catch up again down the deck in terms of detailed performance. But broadly, Telkom delivered a very strong quarter with double-digit EBITDA growth. In the absence of the 3G accelerated depreciation which featured in the corresponding period, both EBIT and PATAMI demonstrated growth of close to 100% in both cases. In Indonesia, we have a improving pricing environment as far as the mobile sector is concerned, and revenues grew by 9.2%.
In Bangladesh, Robi did extremely well this quarter would have registered a PATAMI increase of 38% if not for the drag from Forex losses, which brought PATAMI down to - 66%. These are a country again in addition to Sri Lanka, where Forex losses have begun to bring down reported performance. Dialog, strong recovery in this quarter, with respect to Project Resilience, delivered good quarter-on-quarter growth. 21.7% revenue growth driven by data and hubbing business. We can see the results of most of the efforts put together to rationalize cost as well as to localize the business operations as a resistance to the Forex environment. In Nepal, Ncell exhibited a shortfall in voice, further exacerbated by higher costs.
PATAMI fell 17.8% in this case, cushioned by lower taxes. We're going through in greater detail later on. In Cambodia, Smart delivered a 9.4% increase in service revenues. This was offset by one-off impacts of microwave regulatory fees. In Indonesia, again, Link Net, which is our newest teleco subsidiary, 3 million homes passed and a penetration rate of around 27%. Revenues declined on a year-on-year basis, largely due to a higher churn rate. We see that all efforts are being directed at turning around this performance towards a growth trajectory in the quarter to follow. I'll hand back to Vivek for the digital subset.
Thanks, Hans. Just to cover quickly on our digital business and tower business. Boost, which is the financial services business, has been doing well on revenue with a focused growth in the lending business. We have both across Indonesia as well as Malaysia, lent around close to MYR 1 billion, and we have currently around a loan book of around MYR 180 million. That's what is translating into a strong 30.1% growth coming out of in revenue. However, we did have an impact coming out of on the profit EBIT line, mainly because of one-off increased NPL on account of a fraudulent case, which actually helps us improve our controls in that area.
Continues to do a strong performance on user base with over 10.2 million and merchants around 538,000 merchants across the country. ADA continues to deliver well. Their core business of customer engagement and e-commerce enablement has been doing well. However, the digital business has been impacted. Digital marketing business has been impacted mainly because of the reduced marketing spend across the region on account of impact on the overall market sentiment. edotco, I think a combination of both inorganic and organic focus has been driving a strong performance. We've seen a growth in the colo moving up to around 1.64 times and strong performance coming from some of the markets like Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Cambodia.
In addition, the acquisitions in Philippines as well as Indonesia have been now consolidated into the overall portfolio of edotco. Having said that, profit, strong EBIT growth. Profit impacted by partly because of Forex losses and also on account of increased finance costs coming from the debt acquired for these new tower acquisitions. I think we are happy to say that we do expect ourselves to deliver better than the KPIs which we had set at the beginning of the year, which were in terms of revenue as well as EBIT. We do expect high single digit revenue, and we do expect EBIT growth of in thirties.
Having said that, I think we do expect challenges coming from the headwinds in macro markets, macroeconomic situation in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and obviously the developments in Myanmar. Though Myanmar is one of overall net assets is still a very small percentage for Axiata as such. I'm also happy to announce an interim dividend of MYR 0.05, which would be equivalent to MYR 460 million payout. If you recall, in Q2, we did announce a deferment of the dividend on account of pending merger in Malaysia as well as the developments on the macro environment. Now, I think we are pretty confident of the merger getting done.
Also on a macro standpoint, and also cash flows overall, we are much comfortable to be able to announce an interim dividend of MYR 0.05 for quarter three. Maybe let me continue quickly on the reported results, reported performance. As I said, quarter-on-quarter, a very strong 8.3% growth year-on-year. 11% growth on revenue, translating on year-to-date around 7.6%. Coming from all opcos, excepting Nepal. Translating into strong performance coming on the EBITDA line as well as EBIT. However, profits, as I said earlier, have been impacted by on account of the Forex losses. I mean, cumulative for this year has been around MYR 1.2 billion, out of around MYR 950 million has been on unrealized losses, and the balance is coming on account of realized.
Unrealized is mostly on account of the long debt, 30-year bond, which we have at the group level, which for good reasons, we have decided not to hedge. That's, I think, where the impact is coming. Hopefully, in Q4, with the movement shift in the ringgit, which we've seen in the last couple of days, should help us recover some of these unrealized losses. If I go to the next slide, which is the underlying performance. The underlying performance has been strong, year-on-year growth of around 15.9% and quarter-on-quarter growth of 9.5% and year-to-date growth of 10.7%. I think this growth has come across all markets, very strong performance, across all markets, and Celcom are impacted because of the voice revenue.
This does include the consolidation of Link Net revenue for a full quarter, which is around MYR 321 million. If I exclude that, the year-to-date growth is around 8.5%. Still a very strong organic growth coming in for the year. That's basically translating into the strong performance on the EBITDA line for us, with the margins being fairly stable at 44.6%. Flowing down of that into the EBIT line, which around 27% growth on account of the year-on-year 31.5% growth coming in on EBIT on a year-to-date basis. Effectively translating into a strong 19% growth on the PATAMI, underlying PATAMI on a year-to-date basis.
This is just a waterfall to demonstrate how we have performed on a year-to-date basis on our underlying PATAMI. As I said earlier, most of that impact coming out of strong EBITDA performance, however, to some extent, offset by D&A, which is coming because of the increased investments specifically coming into the tower business and also inclusion of Link Net. Net finance cost mainly on account of the acquisition debt. Tax has been higher because of two reasons. One is the profits being the profit before tax being higher, and also the fact that we did pay one-off taxes, prosperity tax in Malaysia, which is around MYR 130 million.
If I look at the reported versus the underlying, as I said earlier, main impact is coming out of the Forex movement. Cash flows. Adjusted cash flow marginally down at around 20%, mainly coming out of the new tower acquisitions which we did in Philippines. If I look at on a country by country, it's partly impact is coming from Dialog, which has been essentially because of the lower EBITDA, consequent to the Forex impact as well as the inflation of that particular market. Balance sheet. I think one-off impact, which I talked about earlier, on increasing the gross debt to EBITDA to around 3.2x, which we believe is a temporary.
I think we should be able to pay down some of the debt coming out of the proceeds from the merger in Malaysia as well as the payback of shareholder loan, which is currently given to Celcom. The debt profile, maturity profile, if you would see that, we have around 28% of that sitting one-two years. Most of that would be taken out with the few activities being done as, for example, rights issue in Indonesia. The proceeds from Celcom -Digi merger, which should be used for paying down some of this short-term debt and also the refinancing of some of the short-term debt in businesses like edotco.
Cash position of MYR 7.7 billion, mostly at Celcom, AXIS, as well as the edotco, and some of that sitting with the corporate center. I'll hand over to Hans to cover Digital Telcos.
Thanks. Thanks, Vivek. Starting with Celcom. As I mentioned earlier, strong double-digit EBITDA growth. Two contributing drivers there. Revenue grew by 3.9%, driven largely by the prepaid business as well as the consolidation of the new subsidiaries on the enterprise front, Bridgenet and Infront. Also, importantly, an improved performance in OpEx, in particular sales and marketing, as well as bad debt performance. Reduction in the dealer incentives, based on the new operating model. EBITDA therefore grew by 12.4%, and margin improved by 3.8 points. Good flow-through from EBITDA, with EBIT increasing by 96.1%. In the absence of the accelerated depreciation benefit, which I mentioned earlier, this also exhibits a underlying increase of approximately 50%.
EBIT margin increased by 42.5 points. In terms of underlying improvement, translates to 6.7 points if we were to ignore the differential in accelerated depreciation. PATAMI recorded at MYR 856 million, which is an increase of 65.3%. Again, driven by the EBIT flow-through and offset by the higher taxes, which already mentioned by Vivek. Cash flows are strong, with FCF increasing by 17.8%. Also, strong driver of this being the flat CapEx at around MYR 555 million. Moving on to XL. Revenues grew by 9.2%. Stabilized yield environment or pricing environment in the post-Lebaran period. ARPU was hardened from IDR 36,000 to IDR 38,000.
EBITDA and EBIT both lagged revenue growth, however, due to increased OpEx in direct costs of the sales and marketing expenses and regulatory costs. We also see an increase in depreciation and amortization. EBITDA grew by 4.8%, with a margin compression of 2 points, and EBIT grew 8.4%, with flat margins at around 12.5%. PATAMI fell moderately by 3.5%, due to higher finance cost and lower one-off gains. In particular, the disposal of the tower sales in the previous year, and compared with the tower sale in the current year. Free cash flows grew by 14.3%, on the back of a flat CapEx of MYR 6.3 billion.
In Bangladesh, as mentioned earlier, good performance with revenues up by 4.5%. A strong OpEx performance, lower direct and staff costs, as well as in spite of moderate increase in network expenses. Overall, EBITDA and EBIT outpacing top line growth at 10.3% and 23.9%, respectively. EBITDA margin improved by 2.4 points and the EBIT margin by 2.2 points. Overall demonstrating the improving operational efficiency of Robi. PATAMI, however, dropped by 66% due to the Forex loss on U.S. dollar denominated borrowings and higher finance costs, albeit cushioned by lower tax expenses.
If, however, we normalize for the forex loss, PATAMI, underlying PATAMI grew by 38%, which demonstrates the strong underlying performance of the company. Cash flows grew by 43.8% and CapEx reduced by 17.3% on top of the EBITDA flow-through, driving the free cash flow, as mentioned. In Sri Lanka, Dialog's Project Resilience delivered quarter-on-quarter growth, reflecting group-wide efforts to rationalize costs and also to localize business operations as far as possible. Revenues grew 21.7% driven by data and hubbing business. However, increased network costs, which are mostly denominated in U.S. dollars, as well as increase in depreciation and amortization, led to EBITDA declining by 4.5% and EBIT by 35.4%.
The EBITDA margin compressed by 8.9 points and EBIT margin was compressed by 7.7 points. PATAMI grew over 100% with one-off in this quarter with Forex loss of LKR 32.9 billion. Excluding Forex loss, PATAMI declined by -47.3%. In terms of free cash flows, we have impact of 100%, over 100% impacted by the higher CapEx of LKR 40 billion and unfavorable Forex movement against the U.S. dollar, compounded by a decline in EBITDA, as described earlier, largely due driven by inflation and Forex. In Nepal, Ncell exhibited a shortfall in the voice business and also an increase in OpEx.
Voice revenues declined by 9.4%. The ILD business by 11.2%, cushioned by data growing by 12.2%. However, the growth in data was not sufficient to compensate for the reductions in both the ILD and voice revenues, resulting in revenues declining overall by 3.4%. Increased OpEx, both direct costs and admin costs led to, compounded by the revenue decline, resulted in EBITDA falling by 13.7% and EBIT by 26.1%. EBITDA margins are correspondingly compressed by 6.2 points and EBIT margin by 7 points. PATAMI fell accordingly by 17.8 points, driven largely by the net finance cost, but cushioned by lower taxes.
CapEx was flat at MYR 4.1 billion, in spite of the negative EBITDA flow through, or combined with the negative EBITDA flow through led to a free cash flow decline by 18.5%. Smart delivered strong revenue growth at 9.4%, driven largely by increase in data revenues by 12%. However, increases in direct costs as well as the one-off microwave fees, regulatory costs related to microwave fees, and network-related costs led to EBITDA declining by 1.8%. PATAMI declined by 39.6%, impacted by the one-off penalty fee for microwave, as mentioned earlier, and higher tax from the reversal of deferred taxes.
Free cash flows grew by 24.4% on the back of a CapEx reduction of 24.8%. Our U.S. subsidiary, Link Net, in terms of revenues year-on-year declined by 1.6%, largely impacted by the higher churn rate due to expiry of promotional contracts as well as the pandemic effects over the past one year. Some direct costs increased and high, in particular, higher staff costs, bad debt, and depreciation and amortization. Accordingly, EBITDA fell by 12.7% and EBIT by 49%. PATAMI fell 64.8%, driven by a flow through from the lower EBIT and also higher net finance costs. Free cash flows declined accordingly with increased CapEx and lower EBIT. With that, pass back to Vivek to cover the digital subsidiaries.
Thanks. Let me start with first, Boost. Boost revenue, as I said earlier, continue to grow well with the lending business, coming in with a strong lending portfolio across both the Indonesia as well as Malaysian market. EBITDA, as I said earlier, had an impact coming in on increased costs to support the growing lending business as well as the one-off impairment of debt on account of fraud, which we had in the quarter. This translating into cash flow improvement of 5.4% and PATAMI being marginally lower, on account of flow down from the EBIT numbers we have.
ADA, I think, as I said earlier, continues to do well on customer engagement, which is a large part of ADA portfolio and e-commerce enablement business. If you remember, recall, we did acquire this company last year and which has been doing fairly well in these times of building the e-commerce enablement business. That's basically translating into quarter-on-quarter growth of 10.1% and year-to-date growth of 11.7%. Having said that, I think we've increased costs. Higher costs have been impacting the EBITDA, and increased cost comes mainly because of the fact that the marketing, digital marketing business, where the revenues have started tapering down because of the market spend on advertising has come down.
We have a fairly large cost base to support that, which is now being kind of rationalized or looked at as we go forward, given that we do expect the advertising revenues to keep at a lower level. Profit still fairly strong for this business, growing at 3.9% on year-to-date basis at MYR 46 million for the first three quarters. Tower business, as I said earlier, is lot coming out of both the organic as well as inorganic play in this business. The organic growth is coming from predominantly Bangladesh, Malaysia, and to some extent Cambodia. This is coming from both build of colos as well as build to suit in these markets.
Malaysia is essentially coming because of the new orders coming from the B2B side of the business. Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia also to do with the inorganic contribution from the recent acquisitions which we did. However, there is impact on profit because of higher finance costs and one-off tax in Malaysia, which is the Cukai Makmur. The free cash flow here you would see a fairly depressed number. That's because of the towers acquired in Philippines have been treated as CapEx. The last slide. Okay. I think from, as I said earlier, I think we expect ourselves to deliver a strong performance against the KPIs that we had set at the beginning of the year. We do expect revenue growth to be ahead of what we said as mid-single digit.
Expect it to be at high single-digit or just short of double-digit growth and a strong EBIT growth for the year, whereas we had said high single-digit growth. CapEx. We expect ourselves to be in line with what we said at the beginning. However, this is excluding the CapEx on account of the new towers acquired in Philippines and some of the other markets. That's pretty much. I'll hand over back to Clare. Clare, over to you.
Okay. Thanks, Vivek and Dr. Hans. As usual, we will proceed with the Q&A session. We are also joined by Axiata's group wide colleagues. We have from Celcom, CEO Datuk Idham, edotco, CEO Adlan, Dialog, CEO Supun, as well as from ADA, Srini, CEO of ADA. This is in anticipation that you may want to, you know, direct your questions directly to them to better understand our operations on the ground. Without further ado, let's move on to Q&A. Generally, just two reminders. There will be two ways for you to ask your questions.
firstly is to ask the question verbally, so please raise your hand, wait till your name is called out, unmute your line and remember to mute your line again once we have finished with that questions. Second option, of course, is to type your questions on the chat box in the meeting chat room. shall we proceed to the Q&A session? don't see any questions at this point in time. Maybe the results are good and we have no questions. With high test dividend. One. Okay. Yes, we do have a question from Piyush from HSBC. perhaps, Piyush, you want to kick off the Q&A session. Thank you.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Hi. Hi, Piyush. Yeah. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the presentation. Three questions from my side to kick off. Firstly, how are you thinking about the group leverage after all the kind of corporate actions are completed, the M&A transactions? Maybe by end of 2023, where do you think it will settle down? Secondly, how is board and management thinking about the dividend? You know, given large Forex unrealized losses, would it be fair to assume it will be from your normalized PATAMI? Thirdly, on Indonesia, any further thoughts on combining XL and Link Net to maximize the synergy benefits?
I can take first two, Hans, then you can take the third one? Okay. No, I think we do expect the leverage to kind of settle down over the next two-three years. 2023, we do expect leverage levels to be higher, not at 3.2 level, but higher around three or slightly under three. The reason for that is some of these acquisitions, which we've made, specifically in the tower business, are fairly debt-funded acquisitions, and these will still take time for us to start getting the benefit of EBITDA.
Having said that, I think we are looking at effectively some of the corporate actions to be taken, which we will over next shorter period of time provide more details around, which should help us bring down further leverage in our balance sheet. As far as the impact of unrealized losses are concerned, yes, we do see the impact there on the overall balance sheet because of the currency translation. Because some of these markets, we really do not have hedging opportunities to manage the exposure on the debt we have. Piyush, on dividend thinking, I think we've earlier talked about, you know, going to up to MYR 0.20 dividend by 2024.
I think that will be effectively tapered down in our view. The details around that we will provide shortly. Taper down is because we do see opportunities on further investments, whether it's in the tower business as well as the fiber or Link Net business, where we would see some investments going. Also the fact that the merge through in Malaysia will take a while to start delivering the dividend levels which we were getting from Celcom next couple of years because of the early on integration costs which would be incurred on this merger. We do expect our dividend to taper down. How much would that be is something we'll come back with more details.
Yeah, I'll take the third question on Indonesia. No plans on combining XL and Link Net at this stage in terms of corporate entity combination. Synergy extraction and creating platforms for the reduction of OpEx as well as CapEx are well underway. Also at the marketing front, you might have seen the announcement of some joint products, converged products. Other areas of synergy are obviously on the sharing of the fiber networks and other infrastructures, both on the backbone side as well as submarine cable capacities, et cetera. Overall, we see great potential for the fixed business as well as the mobile business in Indonesia.
If we were to follow the delayering wisdom and the clarity that this wisdom and thesis provides, we believe that the two businesses have independent growth trajectories, while a platform for synergy is not compromised at all.
Got it. Thank you. Can I ask, Vivek, on the dividend, you know, how should we look at more from a short-term perspective also? I understand you will give more clarity on 2024 path later on. For 2022, 2023, you know, in the interim, like, how should we think about it?
I think we will continue to pay dividend at the progressive levels which we've been talking about, but it will not go to the levels of MYR 0.20 which we have communicated earlier.
Okay.
You can see this quarter we did declare interim dividend of MYR 0.05. I think we do expect us to continue giving dividend, but not to the levels which we had mentioned earlier.
Sure. Thank you.
Thanks, Piyush. Let's move on. I believe that there's some questions coming through from Ranjan from JP Morgan. Go ahead, please, Ranjan.
Hi. Good afternoon, thank you for the presentation. Two questions from my side. Firstly, there have been some agreements been signed with DNB. How do you foresee the 5G rollout in Malaysia in the coming periods? If you have any indications on pricings, on the pricing strategy. Second question is on these, all these Forex losses that you've recorded, I mean, how should we think about the interest expense going forward, right? Like, if these are related to your U.S. dollar debts or your foreign currency denominated debt, should we see a like a step up in interest expense going forward? Thank you.
I think DNB maybe we can ask, Idham, Datuk Idham to talk about it.
Sure. Datuk Idham Nawawi?
Hi.
Would-
Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Afternoon. Yes, we can.
Okay. Yes. Okay. No problem this time. Yes, about a little bit about DNB on the rollout. I have not have any information on any change to the rollout plan of DNB for any reason. I believe whatever that they're doing is as per their current rollout plan. What we do is to make sure that our network is connected to their plan, to their network. So far, we have now integrated over 1,000 sites with their network. So that is progressing quite well. In terms of pricing strategy, that's not something that we probably can talk publicly 'cause it's, of course, it's a competitive information at this point in time. Yeah.
Okay. Ranjan, I can take the second question if you have a follow-up on DNB, then Datuk Idham can answer. Otherwise, I can go to the second question.
Yes. Thank you. I think we can go to the second part of the question. Second question.
Ranjan, we have around 64% of our debt on fixed interest, and it is most of that is fixed interest to maturity. Given the Forex movement, we've taken a view of hedging, at least at the group level, where most of the dollar debt is on short-term on coupons. We don't see that impacting us substantially in, at least in 2023, because of the combination of fixed interest loan, as well as the hedges we've taken on coupons, in the short to medium term. If this continues, then we would have an impact, but so far we are not seeing that, given that it's in the nature of fixed interest.
Yes, some of the markets where we do have, which is basically, Sri Lanka as well as Bangladesh, where we have some dollar debt, we would expect the impact of currency movement having some impact on the interest payment. I think I don't think dollar impact would be that substantial as the interest rates increase in the domestic market or the liquidity would have an impact.
Okay. Thank you. Sorry, maybe one last question. If I look at your financials, if I look at the cash flow statement, for PP&E for the first nine months, you record MYR 7.9 billion in CapEx versus your plan for the year at MYR 7.1 billion. Can I just understand the source of the discrepancy?
No. That's what I explained, Ranjan, when I was presenting.
Okay.
CapEx, the towers acquired are classified as CapEx. When we said MYR 7.1 billion, this was not including any towers acquired. I mean, towers acquired where we have built to suit towers, they're rightly in CapEx. These are towers which was more on acquisition towers, which was in Philippines, right? Which is around MYR 2.9 billion. Which was approximately MYR 2.9 billion is what we spent in acquiring those towers. That has been classified in CapEx, in reality, it is like acquiring a company, right? That was not something which was budgeted, which was not part of the original plan. When you look at the CapEx numbers, you will have to exclude that MYR 2.9 billion and then compare with the MYR 7.1 billion.
Got it. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, thanks, Ranjan. I think we have a question coming through from Ken on UBS on the chat box. The question is basically to arrive in the normalized 3Q PATAMI. There is an item called others of about MYR 170 million. What is the nature of that, please?
What is it?
The normals. Oh, item on PATAMI of about MYR 160 million.
This is the one-off charge, right?
Yes. MYR 70 million. That's right.
One-off charge, on account of the Dialog, right?
Yes.
Sri Lanka, prior period.
Microwave.
Microwave fees. Around MYR 40 million on account of microwave fees. Or not 40, the related to the last period, which is what? Around MYR 70, right? Million relating to the past period, and then balance is on account of the tax, right? In Dialog.
Yeah. Just to reiterate, it's about MYR 110 million, which was for the smart microwave.
Fees.
-which we talked about earlier on. Another MYR 46 million, which is undertaken for one of surcharge tax at Dialog. That's the bulk of it. Okay. Maybe we move on. There's another question coming through from the group chat from Bloomberg, Sharon, given numerous M&A activity, can you please share with us the group's organic growth rate for revenue and EBITDA for third quarter and first nine months?
If I exclude the M&A activity, the organic growth for the year to date is around 8.5% on revenue. No, sorry, 8.5% on revenue. On quarter-on-quarter, I think, would be... I don't have that number. You will have that number.
We'll come back.
We'll come back on that. Year to date, it's 8.5% growth in revenue and around 8.1% growth in the EBITDA line.
Yeah. Sharon, let me revert to you on the Q -on- Q numbers for that activity. Okay. Essentially, just to recap for everybody, the new consolidation in terms of inorganic for third quarter numbers would include Link Net, would include Hypernet in Indonesia, which is essentially the enterprise acquisition, as well as the towers coming through from edotco in Philippines. All that basically took place in third quarter of 2022. Okay. I think we do have a question coming through as well from Izzati, is it online? Perhaps, Izzati, please, go ahead with your question.
Hi. Good afternoon. Can we get some updates from Supun on Dialog? How's the competitive landscape there with the competitors? Some updates in terms of last quarter you updated you wanted to get regulatory's approval in terms of increasing the prices for mobile products. Maybe some color on what's happening in Sri Lanka? That'll be great. That's all.
Dr. Supun. Supun, are you on the line to take the question from Izzati?
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Overall, the situation in Sri Lanka has been improving. We have seen stability since the month of August. In general, the economic environment is now stable. Power outages or power interruptions have come down to about one hour for a day. Full availability again, which was impacting the economic activity has been normalized. It's fairly normal business as usual in terms of economic activity. Tourism, starting to pick up from the month of November onwards, and then we expect a better winter season.
With all that, and also the price increase which we implemented, from beginning of September, wherein we increased data rates by 25%, TV rates by 25% and telco rates by 20%, we have seen an improvement in top line in third quarter, and we expect to continue that momentum going forward. In terms of competitiveness, Dialog continues to capture market share, both in mobile data and broadband segments, as well as our pay television business. We have outperformed our main competitor, SLTMobitel group, considerably for the first nine months, as well as on a quarter-on-quarter basis, based on the published numbers and even the smaller mobile operators. However, the competitive intensity in the market remains.
The mobile market in particular has seen intense competition, especially in the data front. However, without really diluting the pricing, we have been able to maintain market share largely due to superior network experience and the overall product offering that Dialog offers.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you.
Supun. Okay. I think we do have the numbers on the M&A activity on a Q-on- Q basis. Essentially, revenue is up 8.5%.
Excluding M&A, right?
Yeah, excluding M&A.
8.5%, huh?
Okay. Yeah.
The same as year to date.
Shall we move on then? Do we have any further questions? No. No.
No more questions?
Doesn't look like it.
Either it's too good or it's too clear. Both.
Okay. Perhaps, we hand over to Dr. Hans for some closing remarks then.
Yeah, thanks, Clare. Special word of thanks at this stage to Datuk Idham and the Celcom team. As we know, this would be the last investor call at which Celcom would participate as a subsidiary of Axiata. Going forward, I assume Datuk Idham will be running his own investor call. Thank you Datuk Idham and Celcom team, not only for the excellent performance, but also for being a part of this investor relations call over the years. For all those who participated today, thank you for joining us and for giving up your time, and we look forward to catching up again at the next forum.